Peace MonumentsRelated to The Holocaust (Shoah)

This web page shows in chronological order selected Holocaust/Shoah memorials and attempts to show ALL Holocaust/Shoah museums. The total number of such museums is 64, of which 28 (45%) are at historic sites (7 in Poland, 6 Germany, 4 France, 3 Netherlands, 2 Lithuania, & one each in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, & Serbia), and 35 (55%) are in locations not directly associated with Holocaust events (19 in the USA, 5 France, 4 Israel, 2 Canada, 2 in England, and one each in Argentina, Romania & South Africa).

ATTENTION

Twice Turned Down. So far as I can tell, this web page names and contains links to more Holocaust museums and memorials than any other source in the world. On June 27, 2011, I walked into the Secretariat Building of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, the world's largest Holocaust museum and research institution. I reached the office of Mr. Hagai Barnea, Hebrew
Website Editor, Commemoration & Public Relations Division, Tel. +972 2
6443781, showed him this web page -- and my web page about Yad Vashem -- and asked him to direct me to someone familiar with Holocaust memorials worldwide in order to determine how Yad Vashem might be able to help me correct my errors and omissions. Mr. Barnea said that it would be impossible for him or for anyone else at Yad Vashem to identify such a person except by receiving and circulating an email request. I offered to write such an email on the spot, but Mr. Barnea said that it would take several days for the Secretariat to process my request and that I would have to send the email after returning to America, which I did repeatedly over the next two months. Finally, on Sept. 25, 2011, I received the following reply: "My apologies for the delay in reply, and for any inconvenience caused when you visited in June.
As the Jewish people's living memorial to the Holocaust, and the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem has contacts with many different Holocaust organizations and archives around the world.
Our contacts with these institutions are not something that we are at liberty to share with outside parties, and we therefore cannot help you with your request for an exchange of information.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Amanda Smulowitz,
Commemoration and Public Relations Division, Jerusalem."

English translation: "Soon after the war, the Nuremberg tribunal defined the extermination of the Jews as a genocide. Almost immediately, American authors called it 'holocaust.' But this term creates a problem due to its sense of sacrifice. Also, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon world which still uses it, European Jews more and more employ the word 'Shoah' which indicates 'catastrophy.'"

Before& After1978

Museumsat HistoricSites (H)

MuseumsElse-where

TOTAL

First33 Years1945-1977

10 (15.4%)

7 (10.8%)

17 (26.2%)

Second33 Years1979-2011

19 (29.2%)

29 (44.6%)

48 (73.8%)

TOTAL

29 (44.6%)

36 (55.4%)

65 (100.0%)

Seventeen of the 64 Holocaust/Shoah museums (26%) were opened before 1978, and 48 (74%) were opened after 1978. The year 1978 is significant for two reasons: Because it is exactly 33 years after the end of World War II (1945) and 33 years before the current year (2011). And because the four-part television series "The Holocaust" broadcast in that year created world-wide interest in the Holocaust virtually overnight. Indeed, the TV series popularized the word Holocaust, at least in English. Before 1978, NO museum contained the word Holocaust in its name. Since 1978, 19 museums (40%) have contained Holocaust in their names. Most of these are in English-speaking countries (12 in USA, 2 in Canada, 1 each in Argentina, England, France Hungary & Ukraine). No museum in a Romance language country (France, Belgium, Italy & Romania) has the word Holocaust in its name.

Incidentally, World War II era rail cars from Europe have become a prominent symbol of the Holocaust/Shoah. There are currently at least 17 permanent displays of such cars in six countries (Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Israel & USA), particularly in the USA where there are 10 such cars, of which three are in a single state (Florida). Click here for a special web page about Holocause rail cars.

1940's:

July 1944-April 1945 - Liberation of Nazi death camps. Soviet forces were the first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching Majdanek near Lublin (Poland) in July 1944.
The Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest camp, in January 1945. Shortly before Germany's surrender, Soviet forces liberated the Stutthof, Sachsenhausen & Ravensbrueck camps.
US forces liberated Buchenwald near Weimar (Germany) on April 11, 1945. They also liberated Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenburg, Dachau & Mauthausen.
British forces liberated camps in northern Germany, including Neuengamme. They entered Bergen-Belsen near Celle in mid-April 1945.

WORD

1944 - Genocide. "Raphael Lemkin [1990-1959], a lawyer and a Polish Jew, coined the word genocide in 1944. It is a combination of a Greek word genos (meaning 'race,' 'group,' or 'tribe') and a Latin ending ...cide (meaning 'killing')." (per Holocaust: An end to innocence" by Seymour Rossel.)

PHRASE

April 1945 - "Nie Wieder" / "Never Again," Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Ettersberg / Etter Mountain, near Weimar, Thuringia (Germany). "According to the great historian of the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg [1926-2007], the phrase 'Never Again' first appeared on handmade signs put up by inmates at Buchenwald in April 1945, shortly after the camp had been liberated by US forces. 'I think it was really the Communists who were behind it, but I am not sure,' Hilberg said in one of the last interviews he gave. Since [1945], 'Never Again' has become kind of shorthand for the remembrance of the Shoah. At Buchenwald, the handmade signs were long ago replaced by a stone monument onto which the words are embossed in metal letters. And as a usage, it has come to seem like a final word not just on the murder of the Jews of Europe, but on any great crime against humanity that could not be prevented." Information courtesy of Nathan Schulman. /// "On the site where inmate survivors erected the first memorial in the liberated camp on April 19, 1945, there is now a marker commemorating all of the inmates of the concentration camp. A plain metal plaque bearing the names of 50 nations in alphabetical order is inserted in the ground; the middle section is kept at 37° C, the temperature of the human body. (Design: Horst Hoheisel)" /// US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Buchenwald survivor Elie Wiesel & International Buchenwald Committee President Bertrand Herz laid roses on this plaque on June 5, 2009 [lower image]. Upper image is Never Again monument at Dachau.

CAMP

MUSEUM

1947 - Memorial & Museum Auschswitz-Birkenau, Auschswitz (Poland). "The grounds & most of the buildings at the sites of the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau are open to visitors." See Video & Website. One of 3 musuems asked by the Polish government in Feb 2011 to remove .pl from their web addresses. (The 3 are Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek & Stutthof.) H

PHOTOS

Jacobs, Alan, "Then and Now." Images of Auschswitz- Birkenau as remembered by artist-survivors compared to the identical scenes photographed about 60 years later by writer/photographer Alan Jacobs.

M E M O R I A L1947 - "To the Children of the Exile," Kibbutz Mishmar Ha'emek, Jezreel Valley, (Israel). By Ze'ev Ben-Zvi [1904-1952]. "In memory of the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. Only Holocaust monument erected in Israel prior to the establishment of the State. Consists of a stone wall surrounding a small round plaza. Carved into the wall are four alcoves, each containing groups of sculpted figures. In a small alcove furthest to the left, a small crouching figure depicts the cramped places - often used by children - to hide from the Nazis. In the next alcove, five faceless figures are bent over each other protectively. The third alcove contains seven identical, faceless figures standing one behind the other. The alcove furthest to the right, the largest of the four, shows a mother and a child. The child's arms reach out to her, his mouth open in a cry for help. His mother's long arms stretch over her child, but her head is turned to the side, her eyes closed."

BOAT

1947-1952 - "Exodus 1947" - Carried Holocaust survivors & other Jewish emigrants from France to the British Mandate for Palestine, but the British Royal Navy seized the ship and deported all its passengers to the British Zone of Germany. Sign in image reads "HAGANAH Ship / EXODUS 1947." Burned to the waterline in 1952.

1949 - Beit Lohamei Hagetaot / Ghetto Fighters' House Museum, Coastal Highway (#4) between Acre (Akko) & Nahariya, Western Galilee (Israel). "Founded by members of Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, a community of Holocaust survivors, among them fighters of the ghetto undergrounds and partisan units. The museum is named after Itzhak Katzenelson [1886-1944], a Jewish poet who died at Auschwitz. The world’s first museum commemorating the Holocaust & Jewish heroism. Represents the highest expression of its founders’ commitment to Holocaust education in Israel & the world. The museum tells the story of the Jewish people in the 20th century, and particularly during WW-II and the Holocaust. At the center of the narrative is the individual, and the many expressions of Jewish resistance in ghettos, concentration camps, and partisan combat." (One of only two Holocaust museums located on a kibbutz (the other being at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai.)

1950's:

MEMORIAL

About 1950 - Massacre Memorial, Jedwabne (Poland). NB: First observed use of the word "massacre" in the name of a Holocaust monument. Left image shows "a group of rabbis plac[ing] stones on top of the memorial monument in Jedwabne.
" The Jedwabne pogrom (or massacre) was a massacre of at least 300 Polish Jews at Jedwabne in German occupied Poland in July 1941.

1951 - Statue of Mordechai Anilevich, Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, 10 km south of Ashkelon (Israel). "A giant statue of Anilewicz by Nathan Rapoport [1911-1887] clutching a grenade, set on a hilltop next to the kibbutz's water tower (which was preserved after being destroyed by the Egyptians in 1948). The kibbutz also has a museum devoted to Anielewicz & his fighting in the ghetto, as well as the Battle of Yad Mordechai, one of only two Holocaust museums located on a kibbutz (the other being at Lohamey HaGeta'ot). Mordecai Anielewicz [1919-1943] was commander of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. "The place never changes at all, the hero is still entangled in the seige thicket, and I still learn from this experience. [Avraham Burg]"

CEMETERY

1952 - Gräbenfeld X / Cemetery X, Tubingen (Germany). Has military sections for WW-I and WW-II. Also "served as the cemetery for the anatomical institute of Tübingen University from 1849 to 1963. People who had donated their bodies to science were buried here. But the 1077 people who were buried here from 1933 to 1945 died as victims of the Nazi regime -- starved or killed in POW camps, in hospitals, in concentration camps, work camps, etc. More than 70 were hanged or beheaded by military courts for resistance or openly doubting military victory in the war. 44 of the people here were murdered by the German secret police without trial. 156 were POWs or forced laborers who died of various diseases or of exposure and exhaustion in their camps and were buried here after use by the anatomical institute." "The three crosses were the first indication of a memorial at this site. They were added in 1952. It is hardly visible on the photo, but they read '1939-1945,' giving the impression that this is a war memorial." Visited by EWL. H

"The Knesset law of 1953 establishing Yad Vashem was printed in Hebrew, English & French. The English version translates shoah as 'Disaster,' while the French version of the Knesset law uses 'l'Holocauste' on two occasions. In 1953-1955, shoah at Yad Vashem was usually translated into English as 'Disaster' (capitalized with few exceptions), 'the Great Disaster,' 'the Destruction Period,' and 'the European catastrophe' (this last usually uncapitalized)" (per Jon Petrie, jon_petrie@yahoo.com). /// Yad Vsshem is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) that shall not be cut off."

HOSPITAL

MEMORIAL

1953 - Gedenkstätte Hadamar / Hadamar Memorial Site, Hadamar, Hesse (Germany). "For the victims of Nazi euthanasia crimes took place after the war, memorial services were held initially at the prison cemetery. Inaugurated in 1953, Dr. Frederick Stöffler, later Second National Director of the State Welfare Association of Hesse (LWV), a relief from the main entrance of the former State Hospital Hadamar one. It was the first memorial to victims of Nazi euthanasia in Germany. In 1964, the LWV had to carry the Hadamar psychiatric hospital, the prison cemetery, turn it into a memorial landscape.
The foundation of the Hadamar Memorial, and thus the first German Nazi euthanasia memorial dates back to 1983 when the historic cellars of visitors were opened. In the late 1980s the LWV took over the sponsorship of the Memorial and provided them with facilities and personnel." /// "You can see the crematorium at the end of the room shown as a photograph. Here all the bodies were burned.
10,000 are burned from January to August 1941st." [Google translations] Momument in left image dates from 1983.

CAMP

MEMORIAL

1953 - KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme / Neuengamme Memorial Site, Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75, Bergedorf, Hamburg (Germany). "A first memorial was erected in 1953 on the site of the former camp garden. It was expanded in 1965, and a 'document house' was added in 1981. In 1989, the Hamburg Senate decided that the prisons erected in 1950 and 1970 on the camp site should be relocated. The older one was closed in 2003, the newer in 2006. In 2005 a new memorial site and museum were opened. Since 1985, there are also memorials at the subcamps Fuhlsbüttel and Sasel, and in the Bullenhuser Damm school, where a number of children were murdered after being subjected to medical experiments." The memorial includes a reconstructed railway wagon [of the type] in which prisoners were transported. Right image shows "Der sterbende Häftling / The Dying Prisoner" by Françoise Salmon.

M E M O R I A L1953 - Kragujevac October / October 21 Memorial Park, Desankin venac, Kragujevac
(Serbia). Also called Šumarice Memorial Park. At the site of the Kragujevac Massacre where 2,796 men, women and children were killed on October 21, 1941, by German occupation forces. "Occupies more than 850 acres. Designed by architects Mihailo Mitrovic & Radivoje Tomic.
Includes 30 mass graves & 10 monuments atop 10 burial moulds. The main one is "Monument to Executed Pupils and Professors" by sculptor Miodrag Živkovic (also known as the "Broken Wing" Monument). It has become a symbol of both the Memorial park & City of Kragujevac." "October 21 Memorial Museum" oppened on February 15, 1976 (qv). Click here for Wikipedia article. Info courtesy of Gerard Lössbroek. H

CAMP

MEMORIALS

September 14, 1958 - Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald / Buchenwald Memorial, Ettersberg / Etter Mountain, near Weimar, Thuringia (Germany). Site of Konzentrationslager (KZ) Buchenwald / Buchenwald concentration camp which was established in July 1937 and was one of the first and the largest Nazi concentration camp on German soil. Chairman of the prewar German Communist Party Ernest Thälmann [1886-1944] was murdered here. From 1945 to 1950, the camp was used by the Soviet occupation authorities as an internment camp (NKVD special camp number 2). "The first monument to victims was erected days after the initial liberation [in April 1945]. Intended to be completely temporary, it was built by prisoners and was made of wood. A [stone] monument to commemorate the dead was erected in 1958 by the GDR near the mass graves." From 1958 to 1990, Buchenwald was the "Red Olympus," the "holiest shrine of the German Democratic Republic."
"Inside the camp, there is a living monument in the place of the first monument that is kept at skin temperature year round." Click here for a guide to Buchenwald's many Communist monuments, including Bell Tower & sculpture by Fritz Cremer [1906-1993] depicting Buchenwald resistance fighters (upper image) & Street of Nations honoring victims from 18 different countries (lower image). H

1961 - Eternal Flame, Hall of Remembrance, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem (Israel). "Continuously illuminates the Hall from a base fashioned like a broken bronze goblet, its smoke exiting the building through an opening at the highest point of the ceiling. Before it stands a stone crypt containing the ashes of Holocaust victims, brought to Israel from the extermination camps... The hall has walls made of basalt boulders brought from the area surrounding the Sea of Galilee, an angular roof that gives it a tent-like shape and engraved on the mosaic floor the names of 22 of the most infamous Nazi murder sites."

CAMP

SCULPT

MUSEUM

1961 - Sculpture "Liberation," Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, Strasse der Nationnen 22, Oranienburg, near Berlin (Germany). Sculpture by Communist sculptor Rene Graetz [1908-1974].
"The memorial site, where the Sachsenhausen concentration camp used to be, is right in the town of Oranienburg. 100,000 people were killed here, according to the Russians who conducted a military tribunal in which the commandant and 12 members of his staff confessed to mass murder.
Directly to the left of the entrance gate, there is a small restaurant called Cafe Talk which serves tasty but inexpensive food. There's also a memorial stone in honor of the prisoners who died on the death march when Sachsenhausen was evacuated on April 21, 1945, the day before the Russian army arrived to liberate the camp." H

C A M P + M E M O R I A L + M U S E U M1961 - Sobibor Memorial, Sobitor (Poland). "In 1961 a first memorial was built. Today an impressive memorial and a well-managed museum (1993) are located at the camp site." "Following the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the revolt in 2003, the grounds received a grant largely funded by the Dutch government to improve the site. New walkways were introduced with signs indicating points of interest, but close to the burial pits, bone fragments still litter the area. In the forest outside the camp is a statue honoring the fighters of Sobibor."

M E M O R I A L1962 - Mémorial de la Déportation, Île de la Cité, Paris (France). "A memorial to the 200,000 people deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps during WW-II. On the site of a former morgue, underground behind Notre Dame Cathedral. Designed by French modernist architect, writer, teacher, and town planner Georges-Henri Pingusson [1894-1978] [who] intended that its long and narrow subterranean space convey a feeling of claustrophobia."

THEATER

MEMORIAL

1962 -
Hollandsche Schouwburg, Amsterdam (Netherlands). "Until 1940, a popular theatre, putting on many well-known Dutch plays. In 1941 the Nazi occupiers changed the theatre's name into Joodsche Schouwburg, or, Jewish Theatre. After that, only Jewish actors and artistes were allowed to perform there - for a strictly Jewish audience. Over the years the function of the Schouwburg changed drastically. Between 1942 and 1943 Jews from Amsterdam and surrounding districts were obliged to report at the Hollandsche Schouwburg before being deported. Most of them were brought to the theatre by force. They were transported to the Dutch transit camps in Westerbork or Vught. These were the last stop before they were herded into trains bound for one of the extermination camps.
After the liberation, attempts to put on public performances in the Hollandsche Schouwburg led to a storm of protest. In 1947 the theatre was sold to the Hollandsche Schouwburg Comittee, aimed at preventing the Schouwburg from ever being used again as a theatre. In 1962 the city council of Amsterdam placed a monument here in remembrance of the Jewish victims of the Nazi terror. In 1993 a memorial chapel was installed, listing the 6.700 family names of the 104.000 Jews from the Netherlands who were murdered in the war. Today the Hollandsche Schouwburg is a monument and war memorial."

MUSEUM

1962? - Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMH), Pan Pacific Park, Los Angeles, California (USA). "The oldest Holocaust museum in the USA. In 1961 at Hollywood High School, a group of Survivors taking English as a Second Language classes found one another and shared their experiences. They discovered that each of them had a photograph, concentration camp uniform, or other precious primary source object from the Holocaust era. They decided that these artifacts needed a permanent home where they could be displayed safely and in perpetuity. They also wanted a place to memorialize their dead and help to educate the world so that no one would ever forget. LAMH is always free because the founding Survivors insisted that no visitors ever be turned away from learning about the Holocaust for lack of an entry fee.
On October 14, 2010, LAMH opened its new 14,000-square-foot building" -- the Museum of the Holocaust in Los Angeles (LAMOTH). /// What is the original name of this museum, and when did it open its doors to the public?

About 1965 - Stutthof Museum, Stutthof Concentration Camp, Sztutowo (Poland). "Established as a result of an initiative of the Council for Commemoration of Struggle & Martyrdom and by the decision of the District Council of Gdansk from 12th of March 1962. Since 1st of April 1966 the museum has been subordinated to the culture department of the Ministry of Culture & Arts." One of 3 musuems asked by the Polish government in Feb 2011 to remove .pl from their web addresses. (The 3 are Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek & Stutthof.) H

Marcuse, Harold (2001), "Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp," Cambridge University Press. See companion website
"Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site,
(KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau) 1933-1945-2005." Marcuse is associate professor of history,
University of California, Santa Barbara, California (USA). "At the end of July 2002 I was in the Dachau memorial site again, and examined the first part of the new exhibition in detail. Unfortunately, it is, in my opinion, a disaster. The walls were stripped down and not repainted (to be more authentic??), giving the first part of the museum a confusing, dirty character. The murals below have been destroyed. The entire exhibition has far too much text and detail, and very complex design features that are likely to remain unrecognized by most visitors. What a shame!"

MUSEUM

c.1965 - Holocaust Awareness Museum & Education Center, Jewish Identity Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). "America's first Holocaust museum, is 45 years young. Museum founder Yaakov Riz [d.1985] was a Holocaust survivor who lost 83 members of his family in Hitler's death camps. Riz vowed that if he survived he would dedicate his life to establishing a museum that would memorialize the millions of Jews & Non-Jews who perished at the hands of Nazi barbarism. Initially, the museum was housed in the basement of Riz's home [at 1453 Levick Street]." "...under the auspices of what he calls the "Brotherhood to Prevent Genocide." (per Philadelphia Inquirer, April 21, 1979).
"He relocated to a Cottman Avenue storefront and later to the former Gratz College campus at 10th Street & Tabor Road. When Gratz moved its campus to Melrose Park, Montgomery County, PA, the museum followed.
[In 1998], the museum collection was merged with that of a similar organization in Cherry Hill, NJ, and moved there.
[In 2000], the Jewish Community Centers approached museum leaders about re-establishing its presence in Philadelphia." (per Northeast Times, June 6, 2001). When did the museum acquire its present name?

MEMORIAL

1966 - Mittelbau-Dora Mahn- und Gedenkstätte, Mittelbau-Dora, near Nordhausen (Germany). "It was not until 1966 that the memorial went into operation on the initiative of the SED district administration of Nordhausen. The former crematorium – the only preserved building aside from the fire station – had since been altered to serve as a museum. The memorial was expanded in the 1970's by the city and district of Nordhausen through the restoration of the muster ground and the construction of an administration building on the foundations of the former Political Department barrack. The concept at the basis of the frequently revised standing exhibition in the museum and the symbolic design of the memorial grounds adhered to the typical GDR overemphasis on the antifascist resistance struggle of the political inmates while more or less ignoring the hardships suffered by the other inmate groups.
After 1989, i.e. in reunified Germany, the essential elements of the GDR memorial were preserved as testimonies to the East German state's regional commemoration culture. The permanent exhibition, which remained on view in the crematorium until 1993, was replaced in 1995 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp by a newly designed permanent exhibition in a reconstructed accommodation barrack."

September 1968 - International Monument,Konzentrationslager Dachau / Dachau Concentration Camp, Dachau, Bavaria (Germany). Sculpted by Nandor Glid. "A competition among artists who were concentration camp survivors was announced on New Year's day 1959... Forty-five entries were exhibited in November 1959 at the Ministry for Health and Family in Brussels... The sculpture symbolizes the emaciated bodies of the prisoners who died of starvation and disease. It is approximately 48 feet wide and 19 feet tall and not flat, but has a depth of about four feet. Notice the hands of the skeletons which resemble the barbs on a barbed wire fence." Visited by EWL.

1967 - Holocaust Memorial, Bahnhof Wittenbergplatz, Berlin (Germany). Erected by League for Human Rights. Text is "Orte des Schreckens, die wir niemals vergessen durfen / Places of terror which we must never forget" followed by the names of Hitler’s 12 most notorious concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen &Treblinka. /// "Wittenbergplatz is known for KaDeWe ("Kaufhaus des Westens"), which claims to be the largest department store of the West.
Across the square is the neo-classical entrance to the S-Bahn station.
And almost lost between these two impressive Berlin landmarks stands a discrete but powerful Holocaust Memorial.
It is a 10-foot high steel sign that gets lost in the urban jungle of signs. It looks like a directory at the entrance of a shopping mall, or a list of sponsors.
As much as the memorial felt swallowed in traffic, its violent simplicity reveals outstanding depth & efficiency. Once struck by its presence and its content, the visitor can only draw connections between the camps & the S-Bahn station, which must have served for deportations of Berlin Jews.
And then there's the juxtaposition of the Holocaust & the fancy shopping center. That's also heavy loaded. While Jews were being deported on trains, it was business as usual at KaDeWe: fine cheese, train of Jews, expensive wines, train of Jews, spicy salami, train of Jews...
The Wittenberg Platz Holocaust memorial is successful because of the trilogy Holocaust-train station-Department Store. It plays on our sense of familiarity & our surprise, our tendency not to see things that blend so well in the surroundings & our need to be (violently) reminded of History's dirty pages." /// Information courtesy of Christian Bartolf

MUSEUM

1968-1990, 2006 - Jasenovac Memorial Site Museum, Jasenoac (Croatia). "The Socialist Republic of Croatia adopted a new law on the
Jasenovac Memorial Area in 1990, shortly before the first democratic elections in the country. The Jasenovac Memorial Museum was temporarily abandoned during the Yugoslav wars when it was taken over by the rebel Republic of Serb Krajina. In November 1991, Simo Brdar, a former associate director of the Memorial, stole the documentation from the museum & brought it to Bosnia & Herzegovina. Brdar kept the documents until 2001, when he transferred them to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, with the help of SFOR & the government of Republika Srpska. The museum reopened in November 2006 with a new exhibition designed by the Croatian architect, Helena Paver Njiric, & an Educational Center designed by the firm Produkcija. The museum features an interior of rubber-clad steel modules, video & projection screens, & glass cases displaying artifacts from the camp. Above the exhibition space, which is quite dark, is a field of glass panels inscribed with the names of the victims. Helena Njiric won the first prize of the 2006 Zagreb Architectural Salon for her work on the museum. The new exhibition is however seen as scandalous by some, notably Efraim Zuroff, due to the removal of the Ustaše killing instruments from the display & a possible intent to minimise the crimes committed there.

Late 1960's? - Holocaust Spomeniks / Monuments, Jasenovac (Croatia) & Nis (Serbia). "Among 25 monuments commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960's and 70's to commemorate sites where WW-II battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara & Kadinjaca) or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac & Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakic, Miodrag Živkovic, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) & architects (Bogdan Bogdanovic, Gradimir Medakovic...), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence & strength of the Socialist Republic. In the 1980's, these monuments attracted millions of visitors per year, especially young pioneers for their 'patriotic education.' After the Republic dissolved in early 1990's, they were completely abandoned, & their symbolic meanings were forever lost [sic].
From 2006 to 2009, Belgian photographer Jan Kempenaers toured around the ex-Yugoslavia region (now Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, etc.) with the help of a 1975 map of memorials, bringing before our eyes a series of melancholy yet striking images. His photos raise a question: Can these former monuments continue to exist as pure sculptures? On one hand, their physical dilapidated condition & institutional neglect reflect a more general social historical fracturing. And, on the other hand, they are still of stunning beauty without any symbolic significances."

C A M P + M E M O R I A LJuly 1969 - Majdanek Memorial, Lublin (Poland). Least changed of the Nazi extermination camps.
"On the 25th anniversary of its liberation [by the Russian army], a large monument designed by Victor Tolkin was constructed at the site. It consists of two parts: a large gate monument at the camp's entrance (left image) & a large mausoleum (right image) holding ashes of the victims at its opposite end." One of 3 musuems asked by the Polish government in Feb 2011 to remove .pl from their web addresses. (The 3 are Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek & Stutthof.) H

1970's:

M E M O R I A LMay 9, 1971 -
Pomnik Martyrologii Dzieci / Monument of Children's Martyrdom, Park Szarych Szeregow / Gray Ranks, Marysinska, Lodz (Poland). Also called Broken Heart Monument. Dedicated on the 26th anniversary of Poland's victory over Germany. Commemorates the martyrdom of thousands of child prisoners who died here in a German concentration camp (Ghetto Litzmannstadt) during WW-II. Designed by Jadwiga Janus. Inscriptions: "Your life was taken, today we give You only memory" and "May it pass on to future generations our common cry: no more war, no more camps."

SCULPT

May 1971 -
"Scroll of Fire," Martyrs Forest, near MoshavKisalon (Israel). "Created by Nathan Rapoport [1911-1987] on the initiative of B'nei B'rith & the Jewish National Fund. Consists of two joined cylinders, resembling an open Torah scroll. The first cylinder bears reliefs depicting the Jewish People during the Holocaust - the ghettos, the extermination camps, an uprising - and survivors arriving on the shores of Israel. The second cylinder portrays the early years of the State, ending with IDF soldiers praying at the Western Wall after the reunification of Jerusalem." /// "One of the most beautiful sculptures in Israel. Located in what is "the single largest memorial to the Holocaust in the world," the Martyrs Forest, it is an imposing work rich in detail & history - it tells the story of the rebirth of the nation from the Holocaust up to the Six Day War in 1976. The sculpture commands a spectacular view of its surroundings.
The Martyrs Forest is comprised of six million trees - truly, a living memorial. Four and half million pine trees represent the adults who perished in the Holocaust while a million and (one) half cypress trees account for the children who perished."

MUSEUM

1971 -
Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Citadelle de Besançon, rue des Fusillés, Besançon, Franche-Comté (France). "Established at the initiative of Denise Lorach, a former deportee. Evokes the emotions and depth of this dark page of history. The museum is one of the top five in its class in France and receives an average 65,000 visitors per annum." NB: First observed use of the word "deportation" in the name of a Holocaust monument.

CAMP

MUSEUM

May 3, 1975 - Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen & Gusen (Austria). Center of a group of SS slave labor camps. Original inmates were largely Germans who had resisted the Nazi regime, notable communists, socialists, and religious dissenters. Thirty years after liberation Chancellor Bruno Kreisky officially opened the Mauthausen Museum. Many of the sub-camps near Gusen are now covered by residential areas built after the war. In February 2009 the memorial was vandalized by persons unknown, who defaced a section of the wall with anti-Islamic graffiti. Lower image shows a 1978 East German postage stamp.
See Video & Website.
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C A M P + M E M O R I A L1976 - Memorial to the Deportation, Drancy (France). "Created by Israeli sculptor Shlomo Selinger to commemorate the French Jews imprisoned in the camp... On 20 January 2005, arsonists set fire to some railroad freight cars in the former camp; a tract signed "Bin Laden" with an inverted swastika was found on the place. On 11 April 2009, a swastika was painted on the train car used for the deportation of Jews, a permanent exhibit. This action was condemned by the French Minister for the Interior, Michèle Alliot-Marie." H

July 1976 - Babi Yar Monument, Kiev (Ukraine). "At the ravine then on the city limits of Kiev where the German army (with the assistance of the Ukrainian police) massacred the town's Jewish population in 1941. German army records note 33,771 Jews shot here in two days. Yevgeny Yevtushenko's famous poem (1961) which first brought attention to the massacre in the Soviet Union began 'At Babi Yar there is no monument'. Now there is this one, with tablets in Russian, Ukrainian & Yiddish which state that over 100,000 'citizens of Kiev and prisoners of war' were executed there." /// "The killings took place in a huge ravine in central Kiev that stretched for several kilometers (miles); the area as of now is neither fenced nor properly marked. Seven different monuments are there, but experts say they are not linked into a coherent memorial of remembrance. Children play in a park where one monument stands. Across the street, commuters rush past a busy metro station." H

Date? - Holocaust Memorial, Odessa (Ukraine). "In the square where tens of thousands of Jews from Odessa were killed." // "I wanted to see the Holocaust Memorial – wow, it is powerful. It is in a
park in the city & shows emaciated men along with a barbed wire fence. It says (in English), Holocaust." In Ukrainian, Russian & Hebrew it says Never Forget, Never Forgive." In the same park are trees planted to recognize people from Odessa who hid or helped Jews during this time.
The sad thing is, there are only 90 trees. Prior to World War II, there were about 17,000 Jews in Odessa – a quarter of the population at the time. Today about 30,000 Jews live in Odessa – an increase, yes, since 60 years ago but not one that is proportionate to the population as a whole." Click here for Wikipedia article. H

MUSEUM

1977 - Anne Frank Center USA, 38 Crosby Street (5th floor), New York City, New York (USA). "A partner organization of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Uses the diary and spirit of Anne Frank [1929-1945] as unique tools to advance her legacy [including] the North American Traveling Exhibition Program, the Exhibition and Education Center in New York City, the annual Spirit of Anne Frank Awards..." See Video & Website. See other Anne Frank organizaitons in Basel, Berlin, London & Verein (Austria).

FILM

April 16-19, 1978 (USA). "Over 100 million Americans viewed some part of NBC's [4-part television] mini-series titled "The Holocaust." The screening was a major cultural event. As an immediate consequence, the capitalized and unmodified 'Holocaust' became the recognized referent to Hitler's Judeocide in an American society newly sensitized to that tragedy... A few weeks [later], partly as a gesture to the American Jewish community unhappy with the intended sale of American fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, President [Jimmy] Carter announced the American government's intention to create [the US Holocaust Memorial Museum] 'to the six million who were killed in the Holocaust.'" (per Jon Petrie, jon_petrie@yahoo.com).

1980's:

1981 - Stroum Jewish Community Center (SJCC), Mercer Island, Washington (USA). "In 1981, this Holocaust Memorial was installed on the SJCC Mercer Island property. It was designed by Mercer Island artist Gizel Berman. The memorial states, 'Lo Tishkach -- Thou Shalt Not Forget.' Aside the memorial sculpture is a wall of names of some of those who perished in the Holocaust."

CAMP

MUSEUM

April 21, 1983 - Gross-Rosen Museum, Rogoznica (Poland). In former Lower Silesia. Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp "was known for its brutal treatment of NN (Nacht und Nebel) prisoners, especially in the stone quarry. The brutal treatment of the political and Jewish prisoners was not only due to the SS and criminal prisoners, but to a lesser extent also due to German civilians working in the stone quarry. In 1942 for political prisoners the mean survival time was less than two months." Click here for a first person account of a visit to the camp & museum.
H

M E M O R I A L1983 - Holocaust Memorial Garden, Hyde Park, London (England). Designed by Mark Badger. Consists of two boulders set in raked gravel & surrounded by silver birch trees. Inscription reads "For these I weep. Streams of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people." "Thirty-eight years after the end of World War II, Britain gained its first public memorial dedicated solely to victims of the Holocaust. Organized by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, this campaign revealed the ways that memorialization of the Holocaust in Britain during the 1980's was cross cut with issues of identity, memory and history."

PLAQUE

1983 - Plaque, Holzmarkt / Timber Market Square, Tübingen (Germany). Erected for 50th asnniversary of National Socialism (Nazi party). English translation: "University City Tübingen. In memory of our Jewish fellow citizens who were exiled and murdered during National Socialist rule. As a constant warning to us and an obligation to defend against racial hatred and intolerance. 1933-1945-1983." Visited by EWL.

PLAQUE

1995 - Plaque, Holzmarkt / Timber Market Square, Tübingen (Germany). Erected for 50th sanniversary of end of WW-II adjacent to the 1983 plaque (qv). English translation: "Sinti and Roma were murdured during the period of Nazi rule. They were subjected to forced sterilization and oppression. People from Tübingen were among those who were murdered and oppressed. Members of the university were among the organizers of racist madness. People in our city were among the perpetrators. 1933-1945-1995."

MUSEUM

1984 - Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education & Tolerance, Dallas, Texas (USA). "In 1984, survivors and benefactors established The Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies at the Dallas Jewish Community Center in North Dallas. NB: First observed use of the word "Holocaust" in the name of a Holocaust monument. In January 2005, the present name was adopted, and the museum moved to its present, temporary location in downtown Dallas. Houses an actual boxcar (from Belgium) used to transport Jews to ghettos and concentration camps. An entire room is designed as a memorial. Plaques on the walls list the names of lost relatives of Dallas survivors... Plans have been made for its permanent location in the historic West End area [right image]."

MUSEUM

October 1984 - Holocaust Memorial Center (HMC), 28123 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, near Detroit, Michigan (USA).
"The first free-standing institution of its kind in the USA. The fulfillment of a dream nurtured by Founder and CEO Rabbi Charles H. Rosenzveig [1920-2008] and embraced by his fellow members of Shaarit Haplaytah ('the Remnant,' survivors of the Holocaust)... The organization opened their new HMC [when?] expanding and adapting the former Old Orchard movie theater. The Center's new design received front-page coverage in the Wall Street Journal, with a headline asking, "Should a Museum Look as Disturbing as What it Portrays?" HMC is a partner organization of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service, making it possible for Austrian men to work abroad as an intern instead of their conscription at the military."

M E M O R I A LNovember 7, 1984 - Holocaust Memorial, California Palace of the Legion of Honor (art musuem), San Francisco, California (USA). Overlooks San Francisco Bay. One of the bodies in the sculpture resembles Christ; another is of a woman holding an apple. Both symbolize the connection between Jews & Christians. The only standing man is thought to be the sculptor's representation of the famous 1945 Life Magazine photo from Buchenwald by Margaret Bourke-White [1904-1971] (image at right). Plaque ends with these words: "In remembrance is the spirit of redemption." Created by artist George Segal [1924-2000] out of white painted bronze. (Segal also created the GLBT monument in New York City.) The San Francisco memorial was vandalized with sparay paint in November & again in December 2008. See Video & Website.

M E M O R I A LMay 30, 1985 - "Liberation," Liberty State Park, New Jersey (USA). A bronze Holocaust memorial created by the sculptor Nathan Rapoport [1911-1987]. Portrays an American soldier, carrying the body of a Holocaust survivor out of a Nazi concentration camp. "Liberty State Park is an expansive green space located on the shores of the Hudson River. It has breathtaking views of New York Harbor and is an important place for wildlife in this urban environment.
Only a short ferry ride from the Statue of Liberty National Monument & Ellis Island Immigration Museum is Liberty State Park’s Historic Railroad Terminal." Nathan Rapoport has creeatred other Holocaust memorials in
Jerusalem, Philadelphia & Warwaw. Image at right shows his "Scroll of the Martyrs" in the Forest of the Martyrs near Jerusalem.

FILM

1974-1985 - Making of the 9-1/2 hour film "Shoah," an oral history broadly considered to be the foremost film on the Holocaust. Director Claude Lanzmann (born 1925 in Paris) is a French filmmaker & professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee (Switzerland).

MUSEUM

1987 - Topographie des Terrors / Topography of Terror, Niederkirchnerstrasse (former Prinz Albrecht Strasse), Berlin (Germany). An outdoor museum located on the site of Gestapo and SS headquarters (1933-1945). Largely destroyed by Allied bombing in early 1945. Ruins demolished after the war.
The first exhibitions took place in 1987 as part of Berlin's 750th anniversary. Cellar of the Gestapo headquarters, where many political prisoners were tortured & executed, were found & excavated. Site was then turned into a memorial & museum. In 1992 (2 years after German reunification) a foundation was established to manage the site." After many delays, a new documentation center was opened in 2010 (qv). H

November 6, 1988, The Flame, Baltimore Holocaust Memorial, Lombard & Gay Streets, Baltimore, Maryland (USA). 11-foot tall bronze sculpture. Depicts emaciated concentration camp inmates huddled together and being consumed by a fire. Sculped by Joseph Sheppard. Made by Fonderia Massimo Del Chiaro in 1987. Added to Arthur D. Valk's original (1980) Holocaust Memorial. Remained when Valk's work (which had "become a haven for illicit activity") was replaced by a new memorial designed by Lynn Katzen & architect Jonathan Fishman and dedicted October 6, 1997. Criticized for its explicit and graphic details, for being commissioned outside normal channels, and because it was an add on to the existing Valk work. Inscription around the top of the 6-foot cylindrical blanck granite base: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemed to repeat it." - George San Tayana [sic], 1863-1952. Visited by EWL.

HOUSE

April 20, 1989 - Hitler's Birthplace, Salzburger Vorstadt, Braunau am Inn (Austria). The former Gasthof zum Pommer or Gasthof des Josef Pommer. Original address was Salzburger Vorstadt 219 when Adolf Hitler was born here at 6:30 p.m. on April 20, 1889, Easter Sunday. House is is unmarked, except for a large stone of Mauthausen granite which was placed on 100th anniversary of Hitler's birth. English translation: "For peace, freedom and democracy, never again Fascism, millions of dead admonish."H

1990's:

M E M O R I A LFebruary 1990 - Holocaust Memorial, Dade Boulevard at Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida (USA). The first sculpture is of a mother & two nestling children fearful as the signs of the Holocaust first appear. Their faces ask... "can it happen?" ... "will God forsake us?" The sculpture is framed by Anne Frank's message "...that in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." The memorial also includes the Arbor of History, Garden of Meditation, Dome of Contemplation, the Lonely Path, the Sculpture of Love & Anguish (the raised arm), the Memorial Wall & other sculptures. Enlarge image to see victims covering the arm. Click here for reviews.

M E M O R I A LApril 26, 1992 - Los Angeles Holocaust Monument, Pan Pacific Park, Los Angeles, California (USA). "Six 18 feet high columns of black granite on a base of red granite. The triangular columns provide 18 panels on which there are bronze bas-reliefs & inscriptions that depict the Holocaust Era from 1933 to 1945. The open space in the middle of the Monument symbolizes the 'invisible' seventh column, which personifies all those who survived the Holocaust and pledged themselves to a better world."

Ian Buruma (1994), "The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany & Japan," pp. 204, 237-8. According to Buruma, "the problem with the Wannsee Villa is the ambiguity as to whether it is a museum or a memorial. Presumably it is both, which is the core of the problem. You can remember the Holocaust through art, through ceremony, or through analysis and discourse, but you cannot do all this at the same time, or in the same place..."

MUSEUM

1992 - Museum of Genocide Victims, Vilnius (Lithuania). "Established in 1992 by order of the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture & president of the Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees. In 1997, it was transferred to the Genocide & Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. Located in the former KGB headquarters across from the Lukiskes Square, therefore it is informally referred to as the KGB Museum." "Historical-memorial museum forming its collections following thematic principle. Historical-documentary material reflecting repression taken against the inhabitants of Lithuania by occupational regimes (1940-1990), material on the anti-Soviet & anti-Nazi resistance, information about participants of struggles for freedom & victims of genocide are accumulated." H

MEMORIAL

1992 - Chiune Sugihara Memorial, Vilnius (Lithuania). By Vladas Vildžiunas & Goichi Kutogawa. Shiune Sugihara [1900-1986] was a Japanese diplomat who helped thousands of Jews leave the Soviet Union while serving as consul of the Empire of Japan in Lithuania. Vilnius is called "The Jerusalem of Lithuania."

HOUSE

MUSEUM

December 1999? - Sugihara House-Museum, 30 Vaizganto Street, Kaunas/Kovnos (Lithuania). Two-story residence at which Jewish refugees once lined up in their hundreds to receive visas form Shiune Sugihara [1900-1986], consul of the Empire of Japan in Lithuania. Kaunas is Lithuania's second largest city. H

1993 - Museum of Tolerance,
Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), 9786 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, California (USA). See Video & Website. NB: First observed use of the word "tolerance" in the name of a Holocaust monument.Entry #87 in the "Peace Movement Directory" by James
Richard Bennett (2001).One of 27 US museums in "Museums for Peace Worldwide" edited by Kazuyo Yamane (2008).Click here for Wikipedia article.

FLAME

Date? - Flame of Remembrance, Memorial Plaza, Museum of Tolerance,
Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), 9786 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, California (USA). "Shown burning Tuesday, September 20, 2005, in memory of Simon Wiesenthal [1908-2005]. After surviving five death camps, Wiesenthal helped track down Nazi war criminals & then spent the rest of his life fighting anti-Semitism & prejudice against all people. He died Tuesday in Vienna (Austria) at age 96."

CAMP

MUSEUM

Early 1990's - Joods Museum van Deportatie en Verzet / Jewish Museum of Deportation & Resistance, Mechelen (Belgium). 25 km south of Antwerp & 31 km north of Brussels. NB: First observed use of the word "resistance" in the name of a Holocaust monument."In building previously known as the Kazerne Dossin where the Nazis established SS-Sammellager Mecheln / SS-Collection Camp Mechelen in 1942. In 1942-1944, 24,916 Jews and 351 Gypsies were transported [from here] to camps in the east. Two thirds were gassed upon arrival. At the time of the liberation, only 1.221 people had survived. Kazerne Dossin was therefore, literally, 'the waiting room for death.' The underlying theme of the Museum is to cover this dark period in our history." Click here for visit notes. Information courtesy of Robert DeRycke. "[As of 2010] a new museum is being built after the example of other Holocaust museums in Europe (Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris)." H

Date? - Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork / Memorial Center Camp Westerbork, Westerbork, Middenveld, Drenthe (Netherlands). Westerbork functioned during the WW-II to assemble Roma and Dutch Jews for transport to other Nazi concentration camps. Now a museum. Upper image shows Rails Monument, part of a former railroad track which was used during WW-II to transport people to and from the camp, including Anne Frank. Lower image shows the Appelplatz Memorial, made of a small rectangular stone for each person who had stayed at Westerbork and later died in a Nazi camp. The stones have a silver flame insignia for Roma and Sinti and a Star of David for Jewish victims. (Appelplatz means square used for roll call.) See Video & Website. H

1993 (USA). "Schindler's List". "Biographical drama film about Oskar Schindler [1908-1974], a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories [in Poland]. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Based on the novel "Schindler's Ark" by Thomas Keneally. Stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern. Box office success & recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director & Best Original Score. In 2007, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time,"

BOOK

1993 (USA). "The texture of memory:
Holocaust memorials and meaning" by
James Edward Young, Yale University Press, 398 pages. "Explores both the idea of the monument & its role in public memory, discussing how every nation remembers the Holocaust according to its own traditions, ideals & experiences and how these memorials reflect the ever-evolving meanings of the Holocaust."

SQUARE

FOUNTAIN

1993 - Mahnmal gegen Rassismus / Monument against Racism, Schlossplatz, Saarbrücken, Saarland (Germany). Also called "Invisible Warning Monument." "Designed by Jochen Gerz in collaboration with students of the College of Fine Arts. On the back of 2,146 paving stones the names of Jewish cemeteries are engraved, which existed before the Second World War in Germany." Outside the castle which used to contain a Gestapo prison. Visited by EWL: Incredibly, not a single word in any language identifies this fountain (which is placed incongruously in a depression pressed into a formal 18th century courtyard) or the 2,146 invisible names of Jewish cemeteries to which it was presumably constructed to bear witness. Why build a monument if visitors have no way of knowing what it means? H

STREET

October 24, 1993 - Straße der Menschenrechte / Way of Human Rights, Germanisches Nationalmuseum /German National Museum, Nuremberg (Germany). "Sited on the street between the new and old buildings of the musuem, connecting Kornmarkt Street and the medieval city wall. Consists of a gate, 27 round pillars made of white concrete, two pillars buried in the ground showing only a round plate, and one columnar oak, for a total of 30 pillars. Engraved in each pillar is one article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "Part of Nuremberg's efforts to shake off its Nazi-era reputation as the 'City of the Party Rallies' and reinvent itself as a 'City of Peace & Human Rights.'" "By Israeli sculptor Danny Karavan. See similar use of stone pillars by Karavan at Nitzana Settlement in the Negev Desert (Israel).

HOUSE

MUSEUM

April 24, 1994 - Maison d’Izieu, mémorial des enfants juifs exterminés, 70 route de Lambraz, Izieu, Ain Department (France). "Home of the Izieu children’s colony from May 1943 to the 6th April 1944, [on which date] Gestapo, under the direction of the 'Butcher of Lyon' Klaus Barbie [1913-1991], entered the orphanage and forcibly removed the 44 children and their seven supervisors, throwing the crying and terrified children on to the trucks." "Along with the former Vélodrome d’Hiver and Gurs internment camp, the Maison d’Izieu is one of three places of national remembrance of the victims of racist and anti-Semitic persecutions and crimes against humanity committed with the complicity of the Vichy government, the so-called “French State Government” (1940-1944)." H

M U S E U M1994 - El Paso Holocaust Museum & Study Center, El Paso, Texas (USA). "A memorial to the millions of people who were brutally murdered by Adolf Hilter and the Nazi Regime from 1933 to 1945... Lessons in the galleries include: Life in Europe before the Nazi Party; the Rise of the Nazi Party; the Use of Nazi Propaganda; Kristallnacht; Life in the Ghettos; Transportation by Railcars to the Camps; Life and Death in Nazi Concentration Camps; Liberation by the Allied Forces; the ROradighteous Among the Nations; a Memorial and Reflection Room; and a Gallery of El Paso Holocaust Survivors."

M E M O R I A L1994 - Holocaust Memorial for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (USA). On bank Sesquehanna River. By David Ascalon.

M E M O R I A LOctober 1995 - New England Holocaust Memorial (NEHM), Boston, Massachusetts (USA). "Begun by a group of survivors of Nazi concentration camps who have found new homes and new lives in the Boston area."

M E M O R I A L1995 - Rosenstrasse Monument, in a park on Rosenstrasse, old Jewish quarter, Berlin (Germany). "A group of sculptures commemorating the German women who successfully freed their husbands [during WW-II] through non-violent protests. More than 1,700 Jewish men were rescued after being held by the Gestapo to be deported. Sculpted in the mid-1980's by Ingeborg Hunzinger who named it Block der Frauen / Block of Women. Moved to the park in 1995." Click here for an essay about this monument.

M E M O R I A L1995 - Holocaust Memorial, Sajmiste Concentration Camp, River Sava, Belgrade (Serbia). Camp known as Judenlager Semlin in German. Note that the image shows that the memorial's plaque was stolen sometime after 1995.

MUSEUM

1995 -
The Holocaust Centre, near Laxton, Newark, Nottinghamshire (England). "A Holocaust memorial centre. England's only Holocaust museum. Founded by brothers James and Stephen Smith following a 1991 visit to Israel during which a trip to Yad Vashem changed the way they looked at history and the Holocaust." Originally called Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre. Beth Shalom means "House of Peace." NB: First observed use of the word "peace" in the name of a Holocaust monument. (In 2000, the Smith brothers founded the Aegis Trust which "coordinates the UK Genocide Prevention All-Party Parliamentary Group, funds the Genocide Prevention Group (Canada), and is responsible for the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda.")

September 10, 1996 - Oskar-Schindler-Gedenktafel, Hauptbahnhof 4, Frankfurt am Main (Germany). Inscribed, " In this house lived from 1965 to 1974, Oskar Schindler. During the period of National Socialism, he saved over 1,200 Jews from death in Auschwitz and other camps.
'A tree grows in Israel, which says what can courage. A tree grows at Yad Vashem, the inertia of deeply ashamed.
A tree grows in Israel, which asks who will help today.'Dieter Trautwein [1928-2002]." /// From Peter van den Dungen: "There is a plakette / plaque dedicated to Oscar
Schindler [1908-1974] on a building opposite the central railway station, if I remember
correctly. It is in any case in the city centre, where I happened to come
across it."
Visited by EWL. Click here for Schindler monuments. H

December 1996 - Kharkov Museum of the Holocaust, 28 Petrovskogo str., Kharkov (Ukraine). In pre-WWII building. "The first & so far the only museum of the Holocaust in Ukraine. The museum is based on the materials & documents from the personal archive of the director & founder Larisa Volovik. It’s constantly added by documents, gathered by the Drobizky Yar regional committee & Holocaust educational center of Kharkiv/Kharkov."

Date? - Weeping Wall, Artyomovsk Winery, Artyomovsk (Ukraine). "The Artyomovsk underground quarry was the scene of a particularly-horrible mass murder during Word War II: The Germans arrived in the town in october 1941 and drove more than 3000 people believed to be jews to the underground, bricking them alive in one of the galleries after taking all their belongings. The Soviet army liberated the area in september 1943, & a memorial was later built at the entry of the gallery where the crime took place. The weeping wall is the name of the memorial and it happens to be the only place in the underground mine where some water comes out in tiny drops from the wall. It is said that this water drops are the tears of the victims." H

STONES

1997 to Date -
Stolpersteine / Stumbling Stones, Dachau & many other cities (Germany & Austria). "Artist Gunter Demnig [b.1947] has given this word a new meaning, that of a small, cobblestone-sized memorial for a single victim of Nazism. These memorials commemorate those deported and killed by the Nazis, mostly in Nazi concentration camps or extermination camps, including Jews, Sinti and Romani people (also called gypsies), members of the Resistance during World War II, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christians in opposition to the Nazis and the disabled. The list of cities that have stolpersteine now extends to several countries and hundreds of cities and towns." Demnig laid some 15,000 stones in over 345 towns by August 2008.

ARTICLE

See "Do Tread on Me,"an article about stolpersteine by Ingrid Scheffer, published by the Goethe-Institut.

BOOK

1997"Holocaust Journey: Travelling in Search of the Past" by Sir Martin Gilbert. "The diary of a 14-day journey taken by the author with his MA students at University College, London, to some of the towns, camps & regions in which the Holocaust had been perpetrated: Berlin, Praque, Zilina, Cracow, Auschwitz, Zamosc, Belzec, Lublin, Warsaw, Treblinka, Piotrkow, Grabow, Konin, Chelmno & Magdeburg. Includes the full text of the readings at each stage of the journey, from wartime documents, letters & diaries."

M E M O R I A L1997 - Holocaust Memorial, Holocaust Memorial Park. Brooklyn, New York City, New York (USA). Park dedicated in June 1985, memorial dedicated in 1997.

MUSEUM

September 15, 1997 - Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Place,
New York, New York (USA). "Honors those who died by celebrating their lives - cherishing the civilization that they built, their achievements and faith, their joys and hopes, and the vibrant Jewish community that is their legacy today." See Video & Website
. Click here for the Wikipedia article.

BOOK

Saidel, Rochelle G. (October 1996), "Never Too Late to Remember: The Politics Behind New York City's Holocaust Museum," Holmes & Meier Publishers, pp. 290. Saidel believes "Yad Vashem bends the Holocaust to serve Israeli nationalist ideology, the Washington museum 'Americanizes' it, and the Los Angeles museum is divided between 'universal tolerance lessons and slick high-tech dramatizations,' [whereas] the New York museum will give a more balanced, i.e. accurate, history of the destruction of European Jewry."

November 1997 - Holocaust Monument, Egnatia & Papanastiou Streets, Thessaloniki (Greece). ""Dedicated by the Greek people to the memory of the 50,000 Jewish Greeks of Thessaloniki, deported from their Mother City by the Nazi occupation forces in the Spring of 1943 & exterminated in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps." "Only a few hundred members of what was once the largest Jewish community in Greece lived to return home..."

Date? - Holocaust Monument, Jewish Cemetery, Thessaloniki (Greece).

M U S E U M + R U I N1999 - Centre de la mémoire d'Oradour / Memorial Center of Oradour, Oradour-sur-Glane, Haute-Seine Department (France). "Commemorates the crimes of the 2nd armored division of the Waffen-SS 'Das Reich' in Oradour-sur-Glane, to inform about the crime, and to act as a memorial for coming generations."
"Original village was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company... Burned cars and buildings still litter the remains of the original village [right image]." H

M E M O R I A LDate? - Holocaust Monument, Stockholm (Sweden). Sivert Lindblom, one of Sweden's foremost designers of urban spaces and the artist behind the Holocaust Monument, also designed the Alfred Nobel Monument (qv) in New York City (USA).

2000's:

MUSEUM

June 6, 2000 - Holocaust Exhibition, Imperial War Museum, London (England). "A specially constructed extension of the museum, qualifies also as a Holocaust museum, even though it is part of a larger museum." "This was the first permanent exhibition dedicated to the Holocaust in a UK museum [sic], and had taken five years at a cost of £5 million." Information courtesy of Peter van den Dungen.

M E M O R I A L2000 - Memorial to the Child Victims of the War, Lidice (Czech Republic). 82 bronze statues of children (42 girls and 40 boys) aged 1 to 16 honoring the children who the Nazis murdered at the Chelmno extrermination camp in the summer of 1942. Academic sculptor "Marie Uchytilová worked on this monument all her life, and it was completed after her death by her husband Jiri Václav Hampl in 2000. It is the largest monument to child victims you can see in the whole world and it is very moving."

2000 - Traces Center for History and Culture, Landmark Center, 75 West Fifth Street (Suite 211), St. Paul, Minnesota (USA). Traces "preserves and present stories of people from the Midwest and Germany or Austria who encountered each other during World War II." It is "a peace project presenting itself as a history museum," according o founder/executive director Michael Luick-Thrams. Traces has six exhibits documenting Friends' responses to the Holocaust: AFSC's refugee centers at Scattergood Hostel [in Iowa] and at Quaker Hill in Richmond, Indiana; Leonard Kenworthy's year in wartime Berlin helping would-be refugees get out of the Third Reich; Clarence Pickett's two fact-finding tours to Nazi Germany; and others. Clarence Pickett [1884-1965] accepted the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Landmark Center is a former Federal courthouse, built circa 1896, around a six-story neoclassical Victorian atrium. Click here for an article by the founder.

November 2000 - Synagogue Memorial, "Synagogenplatz," Gartenstrasse, Tübingen (Germany). At site of Tübingen's former synagogue. From the large metal box to the metal column on the street, there is a narrow channel for water to flow under metal plates bearing the names of victims & down this simple waterfall in the foreground. Commemorates not only the building and its destruction, but also all the Jews of Tübingen who were murdered in the Holocaust. The synagogue was burned down during the Reichskristallnacht of November 9, 1938. Tübingen Nazis threw the Torah rolls into the Neckar River, arrested five Jews and sent them to Dachau, and set the synagogue ablaze. After the war, Tübingen courts sentenced three of those involved to prison terms of 20 to 32 months. Info & Image from Mark Hatlie. Visited by EWL. H

MUSEUM

January 2001 - Holocaust & Intolerance Museum of New Mexico, 616 Central Avenue SW, Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA). "We are unique: Our purpose is to educate people about the Holocaust as well as to teach them about other genocides and forms of bullying that have affected people around the world. We are not limited to one religion, culture, geographic area, or time." Co-founded by Holocaust survivor Werner Gellert. See Sept. 2009 visit notes. Visited by EWL.

M U S E U M2001 - Holocaust Museum & Education Center of Southwest Florida, Naples, Florida (USA). "The unique origin of the Museum was a Naples, Florida, middle school classroom exhibit created by students & teachers studying the Holocaust. In 2001, the exhibit was transformed into a museum & educational center." Right image shows "our historic boxcar before relocation to local schools."

M E M O R I A L2001 - Holocaust Monument, Jericho Jewish Center, Jericho, Long Island, New York (USA). Sculpted by Michael Alfano. Three figures 120% life size. "The man points to a brighter future. The woman looks back in horror, portraying the lost past. Leading them, the child pulls the woman from the past to the future."

Date? - Monument to Murdered Children, near Kharkov (Ukraine). "In some distance [from Drobinsky Yar], closer to the nearest metro station, a monument to the murdered children has been erected. Composed of somewhat frightening life-sized dolls, it completes the limited physical memorial reference to the horrors committed here."

M E M O R I A LNovember 9, 2001 - Holocaust Maenmal der Kinder / Children's Holocaust Memorial, Whitwell (near Chattanooga), Tennessee (USA). "An authentic German railcar filled with 11 million paper clips (6 million for murdered Jews & 5 million for Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other groups). Dedicated on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. A sculpture designed by an artist from Ooltewah, Tennessee, stands next to the car, memorializing the 1.5 million children murdered by the Nazis and incorporating another 11 million paper clips." Visited by EWL.

November 30, 2001 - Jewish Memorial, Bikernieku Forest, outside of Riga (Latvia). "Two memorials, recently erected in forests just outside Riga, have brought renewed attention to the Holocaust in Latvia. In 2001, one was dedicated in the Bikernieku forest, where about 30,000 Jews perished in 1942. Funded in part by a German charitable fund,
the memorial consists of a white altar surrounded by jagged rocks. Each section of rocks represents a liquidated Jewish community from where the victims originated. /// In November 2002, another memorial was unveiled at the Rumbula forest, where about 25,000 Jews were murdered in 1941. Significantly, the Rumbula monument acknowledges the involvement of the local population in the massacre. President Vike-Freiberga, who attended the dedication ceremony, called it 'a day of mourning for all of Latvia because this crime happened on our soil and our people took part in it.' The memorial, funded by donations from Germany, Israel, Latvia and the USA, includes a large menora surrounded by miniature obelisks bearing victims’ names." H

C A M P + M U S E U M2002 - Camp Vught National Memorial, Lunettenlaan 600, Vught (Netherlands). "Although the museum is only a fraction of the former concentration camp, it still is an impressive place to visit. The monument shows to what lengths of brutality and inhumanity the Nazis went. It is impossible to deny what happened when walking around the very place where horrifying events took place. Camp Vught National Memorial was reopened in 2002 after extensive renovations. A prisoner's barrack, three watch towers and the original fencing, as well as the cell 115 - where the bunker tragedy took place - have been reconstructed."

MEM

2002 - Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, Boise, Idaho (USA). Along the Boise Greenbelt near the Black History Museum, Boise Art Gallery, Idaho History Museum, MK Nature Center & Log Cabin Literary Center. "This world-class educational park, which has been profiled in several national publications including the National Geographic book 'Etched in Stone: Enduring Words from Our Nation's Monuments,' is the only Anne Frank memorial in the USA & one of the only places in the world where the full Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is on public display. The Memorial includes a life-sized bronze statue of Anne Frank & over 60 quotes from the world's humanitarian leaders. /// Kurt Karst, an Idaho Falls architect, designed the Memorial to integrate the beauty of natural elements-like water, stone & native plants-with the message of hope in humanity." "Gregory Stone of Northampton, Massachusetts, designed a bronze statue to honor Anne Frank."

M U S E U M2002 - Holokauszt Emlekkozpont / Holocaust Memorial Center, Budapest (Hungary). "Incorporates an old synagogue, exhibit halls & documentation archives. It was opened on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the start of the Holocaust in Hungary. Through its temporary and permanent exhibitions, the Memorial endeavors to enlighten the public about the Holocaust in Hungary. Inscribed on the Memorial Wall are the names of 60,000 of Hungary's approximately 600,000 victims of the Holocaust." H

2002 - Gospodor Monument Park, Camus Road, Toledo-Winlock (near Olympia), Washington (USA). "Four towering memorials commemorating Jesus, Chief Seattle, Mother Teresa & the Holocaust with statues or symbols atop 100-foot-plus steel-pipe towers. Visible for miles, especially at night. Dominic Gospodor had planned five more monuments: Two large ones to honor African-American history & the 17,000 people killed each year by drunken driving. Three statues to commemorate Jonas Salk, Susan B. Anthony & William Seward.
He said his monument cost him about $500,000.
Gospodor is horrified by the Holocaust. Raised Catholic, he is especially concerned about the church's inaction during WW-II: "They all remained silent. Everybody remained silent."

December 13, 2002 - Drobitsky Yar Memorial, Kharkov (Ukraine). Inscription in 3 languages on black slab in front of the menorah: "In December 1941 - January 1942 Nazis annihilated the prisoners of the Kahrkov Jewish Ghetto in Drobitsky Yar - more than 16 thousands people - the aged, women, children - only because they were Jews." Inscription in 5 languages under the white arch: "Thou Shalt Not Kill." // Right image shows US author Greg Dawson pointing at name of his mother erroroneously entered on list of Jews killed at Drobitsky Yar. Dawson's mother & aunt are the only known survivors. He wrote "Hiding in the Spotlight" (2009) & "Judgment Before Nuremberg" (2012). H

MUSEUM

April 2003 - Virginia Holocaust Museum, 2000 East Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia (USA). "Co-founded by Al Rosenbaum, Jay M. Ipson & Mark Fetter. Rosenbaum created the sculpture of the menorah used in the museum's logo... First exhibit recreates the atmosphere of the Dachau concentration camp. Visitors can be guided by the voice of executive director Jay
M. Ipson who was six years old when his family was taken to Kovno Ghetto (Lithuania). Next exhibit is set in Frankfurt (Germany) and features a radio announcement of Kristallnacht. Subsequently visitors come to a ghetto exhibit that they can 'escape' from by crawling through a tunnel. Other exhibits include a cattle car used for transporting Jews, a shower/gas chamber, a crematory, an exhibition of the ship Exodus 1947 (the ship that helped launch the nation of Israel), a replica of the famous choral synagogue in Lithuania, and the only originally rebuilt Nuremberg courtroom.

2003 - New Orleans Holocaust Memorial, Woldenburg Riverfront Park, New Orleans, Louisiana (USA). Along the Mississippi River between Canal Street & Esplanade Avenue in the French Quarter. "The Memorial is comprised of nine sculptures made by Jewish artist Yaacov Agam [born 1928], a statue of the park's benefactor Malcom Woldenberg [1896-1982] & also a sculpture made by New Orleans artist John T. Scott called as 'Ocean Song.'"

MUSEUM

July 2003 - Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (MHMC), 5151 Côte-Ste-Catherine Road, Montreal, Quebec (Canada). "First major Holocaust museum in Canada. Facilitated by the philanthropy of Steven Cummings [1898-2001].
Aims to alert the public to the dangers of anti-semitism, bigotry and hate, while promoting respect for diversity and the sanctity of all human life. Its also highlights the role of Montreal, a city that is home to the third largest Holocaust survivor population in the world. Tells the story of the Shoah through the eyes, the voices and the possessions of those few who survived the horrors of the Holocaust, and who made a new home in the city."

TREE

September 24, 2003 - "Deir Yassin Remembered," Seneca Lake (western shore), New York, New York (USA). Bronze sculpture of an uprooted olive tree by [political cartoonist] Khalil Bendib. Inscription: "Earth torn roots yearning, Palestine landscape mourning displaced descendants. Randa Hamwi Duwaji. Perpetrated by terrorists of the Irgun and Stern Gang, the massacre of Palestinian men, women, and children at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948 is arguably the most pivotal event in 20th century Palestinian history. // The massacre symbolizes the Zionist quest to build a Jewish state on land inhabited for centuries by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It marks the begining of the descruction of over 400 Palestinian villages and the exile of more than 700,000 Palestinians. // Over half the population in the land controlled by Israel is not Jewish. Most of these non-Jews are Palestinians. Yet there are few memorails to mark their history and none to mark the massacre at Deir Yassin, which lies 3 km west of the Old City of Jerusalem and only 1,400 m to the north of Yad Vashem, the most famous of all the Holocaust memorials. The irony is breathtaking. // Khalil Bendib, Sculptor, 2003. www.deiryassin.org"

VILLAGE

April 9, 1948 - Palestinian Village of Deir Yassin (Israel). Unintentional monument. Scene of the Deir Yassin Massacre. Lower photo is Deir Yassin as seen from Yad Vashem; the village lies in the green trees to the right of the water tower.

April 2004 - Galicia Jewish Museum, Kazimierz district, Kraków (Poland). "Established in April 2004 by British photojournalist Chris Schwarz." "Commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and celebrate the Jewish culture of Polish Galicia, presenting Jewish history from a new perspective... Supported by an active Board of Directors in Poland and a Board of Trustees in the UK, led by Chairman Prof. Jonathan Webber (UNESCO Chair of Jewish and Interfaith Studies, University of Birmingham)."

MUSEUM

2004 - New York Tolerance Center (NYTC),
Simon Wiesenthal Center, 226 East 42nd Street, New York (UAA). "A dynamic experiential training facility centrally located in mid-town Manhattan, in New York City. The space includes state of the art exhibits, a multimedia theater, and classroom space." Open to the public on Mondays only. One of 27 US museums in "Museums for Peace Worldwide" edited by Kazuyo Yamane (2008).

January 27, 2005 - Mémorial de la Shoah / The Shoah Memorial, 17 rue Geoffroy-l'Asnier, Quartier du Marais, Paris (France).
NB: First observed use of the word "shoah" in the name of a Holocaust monument.
"The largest research, information and awareness-raising centre in Europe presenting the history of the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War." Includes "Wall of Names" engraved with 76,000 names of Jewish men, women, and children deported from France.
Motto: "Understanding the past to illuminate the future."
Brochure is bilingual (French & English). See Video & Website.

M E M O R I A LApril 17, 2005 - Monument to the victims of Jasenovac, Holocaust Park, Brooklyn, New York City, New York (USA). The New York City Parks Department, the Holocaust Park Committee & the Jasenovac Research Institute, with the help of US Congressman Anthony Weiner, established a public monument to the
victims of Jasenovac in April 2005 (the 16th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.) The dedication ceremony was attended by ten Yugoslavian Holocaust survivors, as well as diplomats from Serbia, Bosnia & Israel. It remains the only public monument to Jasenovac victims outside of the Balkans. Annual commemorations are held there every April."

STONE

May 5, 2005 - Holocaust Memorial, West Hills/John Bynon Park, Knoxville, Tennessee (USA). Sandstone monolith inscribed: "REMEMBER. This memorial is dedicated to the memory of the six million Jews and all others who perished in World War II during the Holocaust, 1939-1945, millions of whom were deliberately and systematically selected, transported and put in death camps by the Nazis and their allies. It will remind us to oppose evil wherever it exists. Honored here also are the brave servicemen who liberated those camps and lovingly cared for the survivors. Never forget... May 5, 2005" ///
"The 14-acre park has baseball/softball fields, basketball courts, tennis courts, playgrounds, several picnic shelters/gazebos & picnic tables. The park also features a Holocaust Memorial & access to the Jean Teague Greenway. It is adjacent to the West Hills YMCA & West Hills Elementary School."

2005 - Memorial Cairn, between Dunscore Kirk & the village graveyard, Dunscore, Dumfries & Galloway (Scotland). Memorializes Jane Haining [1897-1944], Church of Scotland missionary, who worked with Jewish children in Budapest (Hungary) & was killed at Auschwitz (one of only ten Holocaust victims from Scotland.)

December 10, 2005 - Hinzert Museum & Documentation Centre, Konzentrationslager Hinzert / Hinzert Concentration Camp, Pölert, Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany). Made from CorTen steel by architect Nikolaus Hirsch. "30 km from the Luxembourg border.
Between 1939 & 1945, 13,600 political prisoners between the ages of 13 and 80 were imprisoned at Hinzert. Many were in transit towards larger concentration camps where most would be killed. However, a significant number of prisoners were executed at Hinzert. The camp was administered, run, and guarded mainly by the SS, who, according to Hinzert survivors, were notorious for their brutality & viciousness." A memorial & documentation center (right image) was opened on the site in 2005. Designed by the architect firm Wandel Hoefer Lorch & Hirsch, the modern steel building houses a permanent exhibition of camp artefacts, photos & explanation notes.
H

M E M O R I A L2006 - Children's Monument, Rabbijn Maarsenplein, The Hague (Netherlands). "A monument for 1700 Jewish children from The Hague who were killed by the Nazis in the Second World War. Consists of six chairs or stairs with the names and the ages on them of the victims. These names were handwritten by school children of today. The monument is also a playground for children."

M U S E U M2006? - Museo de Holocausto de Buenos Aires / Buenos Aires Shoah Museum, Monteagudo 919, Recoleta, Buenos Aires (Argentina). "Only of its kind in Latin America. Serves as a museum, memorial & moral reminder by telling the story of the Holocaust and its impact in Argentina & wider South America. Spacious red brick building. Main entranceway & exhibition space are appropriately dim, illuminated mostly by the natural light of the courtyard that adjoins the museum’s two primary gallery spaces. Supported through the Holocaust Memorial Foundation. Declared a 'Site of Cultural Interest' by the city of Buenos Aires in 2006. Under the slogan, 'To remember is to avoid repeating history' the foundation’s mission is to keep the memory of the Holocaust present, honor those lost and to serve as a poignant reminder of the atrocities that can stem from racism & xenophobia.

M E M O R I A LOctober 22, 2006 -
Nashville Holocaust Memorial, Gordon Jewish Community Center, 801 Percy Warner Boulevard, Nashville, Tennessee (USA). Sculptor Alex Limor (whose parents were both holocaust survivors), Limor Steel, Nashville, created the memorial's centerpiece: A large bronze book with missing or tattered pages filled with silhouettes of nameless faces to represent the status of European Jewry. Also has memorial wall inscribed with the names of deceased Holocaust survivors and victims and an eternal flame. Two quotations on entrance panel: George Santayana [1863-1952]: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."Edmund Burke [1729-1797]: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

October 2007 - Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Lower Saxony (Germany). "US President Ronald Reagan's visit to West Germany in 1985 included a hastily arranged stop at Bergen-Belsen, which prompted the West Germans to put together a small documentation center. It soon became inadequate for the accumulating archives, for the general liberalizing process of German identity building after the Berlin Wall fell, and for the growing public appetite abroad for Holocaust museums, along with the tourist economy they generated. On April 15, 2005 there was a commemorative ceremony, and many ex-prisoners and ex-liberating troops attended. In October 2007 the redesigned memorial site was opened, including a large new Documentation Centre and permanent exhibition on the edge of the newly redefined camp, whose structure and layout can now be traced. The site is open to the public and includes a monument to the dead, some individual memorial stones and a 'House of Silence' for reflection." H

May 20, 2008 - Matzevot / Jewish Tombstones, Losice Cemetery, Losice (Poland). "The former Jewish cemetery was established in 1690 under the privilege granted by King Jan III Sobieski & was destroyed by Nazis during World War II. Its collection of tombstones put on display is the largest collection of Jewish sacral art in southern Podlasie region. The oldest stonework dates back to the first half of the 19th century." // Cemetery was restored in May 2008

M E M O R I A LOctober 8, 2009 - Holocaust Memorial, Bucharest (Romania). "In memory of some 300,000 Jews & Gypsies killed during the Holocaust in the country... Romanian authorities set up the Elie Wiesel International Commission on the Holocaust in 2003 after one ministry in the Social Democratic government denied there had been a Holocaust in Romania during World War II."

2010's:

March 17, 2010 -
"Baggage," scattered throughout Leiden (Netherlands). "Six vintage suitcases carved from different rock types... Erected in memory of the Jewish fellow citizens who were killed during World War II. Maker is the Dutch-Israeli artist Ram Katzir.
On March 17, 1943 in Leiden & surroundings a raid took place in which all Jews who were not in hiding were arrested & deported. 270 of them were killed in the concentration & extermination camps...
By whom are these different suitcases left behind? The two side by side in the Zonneveldstraat forgotten by a mother & child? What stories hides the elegant suitcase at the Vliet? And what happened to the young owner of the basalt suitcase at the Roodenburgstraat? The apparently casually placed suitcases are in fact an anti-monument, with absence in the leading role. The title refers literally to what each of us takes in life, but also what we leave behind. Luggage is an intimate monument which will start the dialogue.
And will stimulate young & old thinking about the consequences of exclusion by people from one another. /// Information courtesy of Marten van Harten 04Jan2016.

CAMP

June 6, 2010 - KZ-Außenlager Hailfingen-Tailfingen (concentration camp), Hailfingen-Tailfingen (Germany). Site of Nazi airfield constucted by forced labor.
Operated November 1944 to February 1945 as a sub-camp of Natzweiler-Struthof (qv) in Alsace. Left image is recent mahnmal. Right image is plan by US Intelligence during WW-II. Visited by EWL.

BOOK

Winstone, Martin (2010), "The Holocaust Sites in Europe: An Historical Guide," I.B. Tauris, London & New York, pp. 438, with maps by Martin Gilbert. "First comprehensive guide to these sites... Contains all major Holocaust sites in Europe, from Belgium & Belarus to Serbia & Ukraine..., notorious concentration & death camps, such as Auschwitz & Ravensbruck, but also less well known examples, such as Sered' in Slovakia..., detailed descriptions of massacre sites, as well as the ghettos, 'Euthanasia' centres and Roma & Sinti sites which witnessed similar crimes..., [and] extensive reference to the many museums & memorials which commemorate the Holocaust." Winstone is a writer & teacher who undertakes educational work for the Holocaust Educational Trust. He lives in Oxford (England).

MUSEUM

October 2010 - Museo Memoria y Tolerancia / Museum of Memory & Tolerance, Plaza Juarez, Centro Historico | Frente al Hemiciclo a Juárez de la Alameda central, Mexico City (Mexico). "Dedicated to two topics. The first 'Memory' part tells horrible story of Nazi Hollocaust. This is followed by stories of genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, Armenia & others. The second section on 'Tolearance' makes you think about current issues and encourages more tolerance."

April 27, 2012 - "Berlin-Birkenau," Berlin (Germany). From Reuters: "Hundreds of birch trees from the biggest Nazi death camp, at
Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, are dotted around Berlin as a living
memorial of this dark chapter in Germany's past.
The trees, called Birke in German, lent their name to the Birkenau
camp where as many as 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, perished
between 1940 & 1945. The installation by Polish
artist Lukasz Surowiec, 26, is part of the [7th] Berlin Biennale, a
contemporary arts festival devoted this year to political art.
'This is an attempt to create a new kind of monument - a living
monument,' said Surowiec, who has had commemorative plaques erected in
front of the trees. 'With the help of nature, I try to continue a
generational mission of deepening the memory of the victims of the
Holocaust.' My project is effectively based on giving back the
"inheritance" to its owners.'"

June 25, 2012 - Victory Monument, Netanya, Northern Centre District, Israel. "Marks the victory of the Red Army over Nazi Germany in World War II. Established by decision of the Government of Israel & with the consent of the Russian government.
Consists of two elements symbolizing the transition from darkness to light & over the relationship between Russian military victory made to stop the Holocaust of the Jewish people, & followed the establishment of the Jewish people in his country. WW-II as described in black bunker. On the right describes the Holocaust, & on the left describes the war between Nazi Germany & the Soviet Union since the war began on 22 June 1941 to end at 1945. The second part is constructed from two high white wings symbolizing the victory, hope & peace. Inaugurated with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin." (Netanya was named in honor of Nathan Straus, a prominent Jewish American merchant & philanthropist in the early 20th century.
Its 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) of beaches have made the city a very popular tourist resort. Today the city houses a notably large population of English-speaking immigrants from the UK, USA & Canada.)

June 2, 2014 -
Ohio Holocaust & Liberators Memorial, Statehouse Grounds, Capitol Square, Columbus, Ohio (USA). Unveiled by Governor John Kasich & architect Daniel Libeskind. "Visitors enter a sloped platform of smooth reddish-grey granite that leads to the monument. The pathway is flanked by benches & a descending wall of Columbus limestone. The top of the wall is inscribed with the words [from the Talmud], "If you save one life, it is as if you saved the world..." Below is a quote by Auschwitz survivor [sic] Avner Shalev [chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate in Israel] that reads: "Every human being who chooses to remember this chapter of history and to infuse it with meaning is thereby choosing to struggle for the preservation of the bedrock moral values that alone make possible the existence of a well-ordered society. This is a commitment to uphold human rights, above all, freedom and the sanctity of life, and the opportunity for people to live side by side in harmony."

Future:

MUSEUM

Future - Holocaust Documentation & Education Center, Hollywood, Florida (USA). "Primary mission is to preserve, protect, and perpetuate the authentic memory of the Holocaust by creating a permanent and irrefutable record of the testimonies of Survivors, Liberators, and Rescuers." See Video & Website. Received German railcar in 2007.

MUSEUM

Future - Center for Human Dignity-Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem,
Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), Mamilla Jerusalem Cemetery, Jerusalem (Israel). Under construction. "Replaces a four-story underground parking structure next to Independence Park. The park is on the grounds of a Muslim cemetery. The project aims to promote tolerance amongst Jewish populations within Israel, including Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Ethiopians, Russians, and others. The new museum complex has been designed by Frank Gehry to resemble a fruit bowl. See Video & Website.